


Light in the Darkness

by CrazyJ



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Afterlife, Cancer, Celebrity Life, Character Death, Family, Heaven, Letters, Louis POV, Lovers, M/M, Tears, dying to young, friends - Freeform, saying goodbye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 21:52:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2597720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyJ/pseuds/CrazyJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I never imagined that I was going to die. Maybe I did in passing, wondered if I would be thirty or eighty-five. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would die this young, die before I had the chance to truly see the world, to live my life to the fullest. But the world doesn't wait until your ready, I learned that the hard way when I passed. There were times when even I didn't want to have to last that long.</i>
</p><p>  <i>The only reason I did was because of him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Light in the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://onedirectionfanfiction.com/viewstory.php?sid=97338)
> 
>  
> 
> [Artwork by Ash](http://i.imgur.com/VPq01x2.png)

Has anyone ever told you that you were going to die, that a year from now you would be six feet in the ground instead of standing where you are? Have you ever woken up in a room surrounded by the people you love most in the world, with their cheeks stained with tears and their lips pressed closed around the words they dare not say. Has anyone ever told you that you had cancer, even when you didn't want to believe them?

But I did, and it didn't matter that I was a world famous pop star, didn't matter that I was only twenty-two years old with six younger siblings and four friends who might as well have been called my brothers, didn't matter that I wasn't ready to die yet. All that mattered was that the cancer was spreading and the chances were slim, so slim that the doctors were giving me the option to opt out of the chemo therapy, out of poisoning my body unnecessarily because I was probably going to die anyways, didn't even want to try because if I was still alive twelve months from now it would be a miracle. Their words not mine, trust me, my words were a lot different.

The worst part was it didn't get easier. Knowing I was going to die didn't make the pitch black clouds dangling above my head move any higher, didn't make the pain in my chest any less, didn't make the realization that I was going to be leaving my friends and family alone any easier. Smashing the mirror in the bathroom with a chair, cutting my legs and arms on the shattered pieces as I slumped to the floor didn't make the pain in my heart go away, only spread the pain so that no matter if I was sleeping or breathing or eating I was hurting, retreating into my dying shell to avoid facing the fact. I was a walking zombie, internal clock ticking, every second that passed one less second I had to live and it stung, made me wonder if I wanted to wait that full year when I had the means here to do it now, sitting in the shattered glass, blood seeping across the tile.

But I didn't. I didn't grab the nearest piece and slice my wrist so that the blood from my wrists mixed with the blood from my legs, didn't smash my head against the wall until there was nothing left to smash, didn't swallow the pills that I knew were hidden somewhere in this room. The thought was there, for the next twelve months the thought was always there, pressing against the forefront of my mind, reminding me of my options. But even though the thoughts were always there, so was he, every day in the waiting room with a new flower or story to bring a smile to my face, even if it wasn't a big one. The rest of the boys came too, they were always a constant presence in those last months, flitting in and out of my life with sympathetic looks and bone crushing hugs, but it was never like him, their hugs weren't as long, or as loving, their stories were always told slowly, like they were worried I was going to break if they spoke too fast. To be honest nothing could compare to him and if he hadn't been there I don't think I would have lasted as long as I did. In fact, I know I wouldn't have.

***

I probably should have seen the signs a lot sooner than I did. I was always tired, but that was no different than before what with the constant touring and travelling. If I hadn't been passed out on the couch everyone would have thought something was wrong, surprise when the fact that I was sleeping so much wasn't a good thing but the worst. I started to lose weight at around month three of the tour, I started to get sick a lot more too, like my immune system was struggling to fight back. The tour doctor chalked it up to such a hectic lifestyle we lived and gave me some instructions to try and live a healthier life. But the thing was, his instructions didn't work. The weight kept falling off, I slept more than I was awake and by the time any of the other boys noticed the discolouring on my skin I was already past stage two.

It just so happened that my body wasn't made for this disease, wasn't made to fight it. I didn't have the right blood cells, the right enzymes in my body to even attempt to fight back and as soon as we were in stage two we were in stage three and hurtling towards stage four with a prognosis of terminal death. In the end it turns out they were right.

But this isn't a sob story, though it's starting to sound like one. Losing my life to cancer was only one of the many battles I faced in my twenty-two years on Earth. Making it on to x-factor was one, dealing with so many siblings was another, touring, press, the media, they were all things that I had to face up against, one day at a time because there really was no other way.

Believe it or not though, despite all those other challenges, the biggest battle I ever faced was allowing myself to admit that I was in love with him.

It sound stupid, that such a little thing like admitting your feelings was what was going to push me over the edge. Looking back on this experience the only thing I regret is that I didn't tell him how I felt until I was already dying, until the time we had to be together was already ticking down. Of course he felt the same way, I think a part of me had known he was going to feel the same way since the second he jumped into my arms on the stage that first day, losing all abandon to be closer to me in his moment of joy. Fear of what the press would say and fear of what revealing my feelings would do to the band had always kept the words at bay, kept them just past the precipice where they would never escape until one day they did and when he started crying I knew it wasn't because he didn't feel the same but simply because he did and he knew what that meant.

I guess that makes me a damn awful person.

Much to my surprise he didn't yell, or scream, or tell me to go screw myself. He never once raised his voice at me, not until the very end when I was switching over and he was yelling at me to come back. Throughout the entire journey, right until the second that my heart stopped beating he was there, holding my hand, stroking my hair and telling me he loved me so many times that I knew when I eventually reached the other side that I would wait a hundred more years for him to join me, just so I could be happy again.

It was only 66 in the end, but that's for another story.

I took up painting about six months in, not because I thought I was artistic but because I wanted an excuse to make god awful paintings of angry colours and smudge them all together and pretend like it meant something. I once spent nine days on the same painting, a single yellow circle in the middle of a field of black stormy clouds, swarming around what I imagined to be the one ray of light in the darkness. I stuck it under the bed until one of the attendants found it, asked them to hide it for me and give it to him when the time was right. It wasn't my greatest piece by any means, I had a few that were actually sold for money to go towards the hospital, specifically to the children's ward where all the people like me were fifteen years younger and still sucking their thumb, but the piece had special meaning to me, and when they revealed it at the funeral and read the inscription on the back, I was told that he broke down crying. I had wanted to be there to comfort him somehow, but I was still transitioning over, my body was still cooling and my spirit was still mending. Afterwards, when the painting went up over his mantle, I liked to sit in his living room with him while he looked at it and cried, just so that he was never alone in his sadness. I'm not sure whether he knew I was there, but sometimes he would look over at the chair where I always used to sit and say hi to me, so I like to think that maybe he did. I was always there though, right until his own end when he passed away in his sleep surrounded by his three children. His wife had already passed away, but then again they had been divorced for twenty years. Needless to say, I embraced him with open arms when he arrived.

This story is also not about our afterlife together, which was admittedly very long. When the doctors finally placed the word terminal on my disease, when they wrote my pending death on their papers and estimated twelve months, they never could have guessed that I was then going to decide to live my life to the fullest. He and I had supper at the top of the Eiffel tower at month seven, roamed through the streets hand-in-hand, my oxygen tank rolling quietly behind us, a reminder of our situation. When we stopped in Rome he took me on a ride down the Canal, didn't say anything when I started to cry because I knew that this was one of the most beautiful things I was ever going to see because I was going to die before too long. When I fell and broke my wrist in Spain, he was the one who carried my body the three miles to the hospital, talking a mile a minute once we got into the ER which was surprising for someone like him who always talked so slow that even the snails got jealous.

The tour had stopped by this point of course and one afternoon in month nine I had all the boys come to my house and promise that they were going to continue singing. They all refused vehemently, said it would never be the same without me, but after hours of screaming and crying they finally agreed, if only to keep my memory alive. I never told them that I didn't think anyone would notice that I wasn't there anymore, I had never had that many leads in the first place and my harmonies could have been done by anyone. I told them that when I was gone that I wanted Niall to sing my bits, because he and I understood what it was like to never be the star and I knew he would do my solos justice because that was the type of friend Niall was, always making sure that he did you proud. At the funeral they turned over my favourite signed footie jersey to him which he turned over in his hands for a long time before he saw my name written on the shoulder. I heard that he burst into sobs as soon as he saw it, but I wanted him to know that I was always going to be watching over him for the rest of his life. On their first show back together as a band he wore the jersey and despite the fact that tears were pouring down all their faces they carried on. I couldn't have been more proud.

I don't think anyone was surprised that Zayn was angry after I got the news. While the rest of the boys were in my room almost daily, he often only came in a few times a week and never stayed very long, always claiming that he had something to do. I knew the truth, I think we all did, that he wasn't ready to admit that I was going to die, wasn't ready to say goodbye yet. It hurt, but heck, I wasn't ready either and I forgave him when he came to say goodbye at the very end, told him how much I loved him and how I needed him to take care of my sisters for me, because he out of everyone else knew what it was like to have little sisters. A year after I died he took them to my gravestone and they sat and shared stories about me before he took them for ice cream and then took them home. It seemed so simple, but throughout that year and all the years after until they were all old and grey he called in on them at least once a week, meant the absolute world to me that he kept his promise until the very end. Gave him a massive hug and a pat on the shoulder when he got here, told him how much I loved him. I never believed that angels crying caused the rain, but there was flooding for the rest of that week and I decided after that it had to be because of our tears. Oddly enough I was sort of okay with that.

Liam was a bit harder; he was always around, almost as much as Harry was. He cried a lot too, broke my heart every time. I didn't prefer Harry more but he never cried in front of me, not often anyways, saved it for when he thought I was sleeping or when he just couldn't hold it in. But Liam was always sad and it killed me to see the life draining from his eyes when he looked at me. At around month ten I decided that I was going to have to have a talk with him, so we went for a walk down the pier and I told him how sorry I was that I was hurting him, asked him to take care of the boys for me when I was gone since I would no longer be around to do that myself. I told him that I wanted him to make sure he did something special for them all at every big moment, like when their kids were born or when they were finally wed to people who loved them. After I died he was amazing with the boys, stopped crying so much but held them when they cried instead, told them that he loved them and that I had loved them and then took them home and tucked them into bed. True to his word he was there for every big moment, even all their funerals since he was the last one to die. When he finally got here we all embraced him with open arms and then broke out into a song because what else were we supposed to do? His son, James Louis Austin said he could hear it all the way from London when he came to visit his grave. We cried a lot that day too.

But of them all, Harry was the best and the worst. By month eleven I was straining to do even some of the most basic things and Harry was always there to help me do them. When my arm got too weak to raise the fork to my mouth he was there to help me lift it. When I was dirty and needed cleaning he would carry me to the bath and dab at me with a sponge until I was sparkling clean, pretending that there was soap in his eyes not tears though I knew he was lying every time. We made love one night, him slipping in and out of me so gently, our tears mixing and dripping down our slick skin. It was the most beautiful moment I had before I died and it was something I treasured in those last few months, treasured the look of love and adoration etched upon his face as we committed such an intimate act. I told him I had been waiting until we were married and he laughed until he had choked on his tears and I held him close for the rest of the night. I had wanted it to last longer but my heart had stopped a few days later and I was taken into ICU. I bounced back that time, but there were a few close calls after that and one that eventually took my life. I was just glad that in the end he was there to let me go.

I couldn't have asked for a better last few months with him. He was always telling me stories, even if they were about his favourite animal when he was three or about the time he fell off the swing set when he was nine. I loved listening to him talk, loved it when he would climb into bed with me and tell me he loved me while he held me in his arms. I knew I was being selfish, I knew I should have sent him away so that he didn't have to watch me die, in fact I even tried it once, but he always came back, always told me that he loved me too much to let me be alone. Held my hand when I finally passed away, ran his thumb across the back of it for ages. Last thing I remember before letting go was him saying I love you, was a true testament that the one thing that kept me here was also the one thing that was able to let me pass over in peace also. I loved him too for the record, with all that I could offer even though in the end it wasn't enough. But I did love him, I promise you that I loved him. I still do in fact.

In the end it took thirteen months before the cancer got the best of me. I died holding the love of my life's hand so I can't complain too much, I could have been alone instead of being surrounded by the people I loved most in this world. I had told the nurses earlier that day that I had a feeling it was going to be my last, made sure that my will was all written up and that my afterlife gifts were ready to be received. They told me they were and I passed a few hours later knowing that it was as good a day as any. It was April 14th in the end. I was half way to being 23.

I hadn't known what to give Harry for after I died. I had thought about giving him my house or my cars but I knew that it wouldn't matter to him, may even be too hard to live in a dead person's room so I axed that idea. I thought about writing him a poem or a song but by the time it got around to it I was too weak to really do much by myself, let alone breathe, and in the end I had to knock those ideas out simply because of necessity. To be honest I had forgotten about that painting for so long that when one of the nurses brought it in I wept openly for a good ten minutes before having to convince the poor girl that I was overjoyed to see it and not sad at all. I had her write down a message on the back, though it killed me that I couldn't do it myself.

When he saw the front of the painting he cried for a very long time, but when he saw the back he cried even harder. I hadn't known how to tell him how much he meant to me in any other way. I had thought he might have hated it, it wasn't anything special like I said, a yellow circle surrounded by black, but it meant a lot to me and I knew he would understand. He had some of the words from the back tattooed on his skin five years after I died, as a testament to our love I guess. He had my initials tattooed just under his heart the day he got married, even told his wife about it, told her the whole goddamn story. Then they made love and nine months later Louise was born, but this time I wasn't offended. It flooded that week too.

In the end I died too young but I lived an incredible life while I was able too, surrounded by the most amazing people in the world. I was never overly good with words, not until I learned that it was one of the only ways to truly express to people how you felt. This is the end of my story, but not the end of yours, so live your life to the fullest while you can because you never know when you are going to get a curveball like mine. Tell your friends and family you love them, kiss your dog on the head and hold doors open for strangers. Live laugh and love and remember, there is always someone who loves you more than you will ever know.

***

_Harry,_

_I didn't know how to tell you I loved you any other way than just saying I love you, but I made this painting when the going had just started to get tough and it reminded me of you. Knowing you are going to die is the hardest thing you could ever imagine and I hope that you will never have to go through it yourself. This painting should remind you to live your life to the fullest and to find that one things that makes you happier than anything else. You were always there for me, right until the end and I will love you for eternity because of that. You were the light in my darkness and you got me through the dark, through the darkest time in my life. You are my light and you always will be. I love you Harry._

_Always and forever xx_

**Author's Note:**

> This was a piece of fiction I wrote for the onedirectionfanfiction.com 500,000 member challenge in which I placed [first.](http://i58.tinypic.com/fk0k7k.jpg)
> 
> Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear from everyone :)


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